Republican congressmen problem Donald Trump on tariffs with Canada | EUROtoday

Several Republican elected officers within the US House of Representatives went in opposition to Donald Trump’s grain on Wednesday February 11 and voted for the repeal of customs duties on Canada – a setback for the US president who threatened the insurgent MPs in the course of the vote.

The textual content should now be accredited by the Senate. But even when adopted, it should undoubtedly be vetoed by the tenant of the White House, who has made customs duties the cornerstone of his financial coverage.

Only a brand new vote in Congress and adoption with a two-thirds majority would make it doable to override this veto, a digital impossibility given the bulk that Republicans at the moment have in each chambers. The decision subsequently has a primarily symbolic significance.

During the vote, Donald Trump warned that his camp’s elected officers would vote in opposition to his customs duties “will suffer the consequences at the time of elections, including primaries”. “Tariffs have given us economic and national security, and no Republican should be responsible for destroying that privilege”he added in his message on his Truth Social platform.

Six deputies from the bulk however joined the Democrats to finish the state of emergency decreed by the president in February 2025, which had allowed him to impose customs duties on merchandise imported from Canada.

Internal divisions

The vote got here after the expiration of a measure that banned any vote on the difficulty of customs duties. The Republican chief of the House, Mike Johnson, tried till Tuesday night to increase it, in useless.

Supporters of free commerce, many elected officers on the correct kind of publicly disapprove of Donald Trump’s protectionist coverage, particularly since it’s Congress, and never the president, who holds the constitutional energy to impose customs duties.

Reaffirming this legislative prerogative, Republican Representative Don Bacon stated Wednesday: “we cannot and we must not outsource our responsibilities. » “As an old-fashioned conservative, I know that tariffs are a tax on American consumers”he declared on X earlier than voting for repeal.

Canada, like many allies of the United States, has been affected by successive waves of customs duties determined by Donald Trump since his return to energy in January 2025. The American president had decreed import surcharges of 35% on many Canadian merchandise final yr, however had diminished this fee for vitality imports and created broad exemptions for items falling throughout the framework of the CUSMA free commerce settlement between the United States, the Canada, and Mexico. More than 85% of commerce between the 2 international locations remained exempt from customs duties beneath the phrases of this settlement.